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Tips for busy users of Outlook Calendar

Sending your calendar availability via email, checking up on national holidays in other countries and using keyboard shortcuts to save time.
It's all in this month's tips and advice article.
 


When you write an entry in your desk diary, that’s all it is – a written entry. You have to rely on ways to remember it, write it in again if it is recurring event and hope that if anybody else needs to attend, they too have remembered to record the correct time and date in their own diary.

You may already know that the Calendar feature in Microsoft Outlook can perform of all the above tasks for you and much more besides. But do you know how to send your calendar availability via email, check up on national holidays in different countries or use keyboard shortcuts to save yourself time?
 

Inviting others to a meeting using Outlook

Set up and confirm a meeting by sending a meeting request, which is delivered to the participants via e-mail. You will know when it has been confirmed safe in the knowledge that the meeting has been correctly entered into their Outlook diary as well as yours.


Send your availability via email

“I can’t make Monday, can you do Friday?” “No, but I can make Tuesday”. Did you know that there's a way to cut out the to-ing and fro-ing by sending your availability via email.

 

When you're trying to make plans with someone, it is sometimes difficult to quickly agree on a convenient time and date. Outlook allows you to send your availability directly to the other person by including a copy of your Calendar information in a message with only a few clicks.
 

The result looks nice, eliminates the chance of mistakes while retyping, and saves you time. Follow these steps to try it for yourself:

1. In your email message, click at the position you want the Calendar to appear. The cursor needs to be in this part of the message window or the rest of the steps will fail.

2. Go to the insert Calendar (or Send a Calendar via email dialog box).

 

3. Using the options available in this dialog box, tell Outlook which Calendar you want it to send, the Date Range (Today, Next 7 Days, Whole Calendar, and other options), along with the level of Detail of information you want to share. Click OK when done setting options. The dialog box closes, and after a moment, Outlook inserts the Calendar information into the Message.

Try this next time you have to coordinate a schedule with someone and see how much time and hassle it saves.

Why isn't my French customer answering me?

This is a very handy feature especially if you deal on an international level. Did you know that you can import over seventy international public holiday calendars into your Outlook calendar?

 

  • On the main menu, click Tools, then Options. This opens the Options dialog box.

  • Click on the Calendar Options button to open that dialog box.

  • Click Add Holidays to open the Add Holidays to Calendar dialog box

  • Select the holiday sets you want to add to the Calendar. You can add as many or as few as you wish at once. (Some users do not even have the UK holidays loaded into Outlook)

  • Click OK and after a moment the new holidays will appear in your Calendar.

Some useful keyboard shortcuts to remember

When you are working in the Calendar's Day/Week/Month views, it may help you to know that several keyboard shortcuts are available.
 

 

Shortcut

Action

  
 

CTRL-2

Go to Calendar from anywhere in Outlook

  
 

ALT-1 to 9

View multiple days, starting with the selected day.

  
 

ALT-HYPHEN

Switch to Weeks view from the selected Day/Week/Month view.

  
 

CTRL-SHIFT-A

Create a new appointment (when not in a Calendar view)

  
 

CTRL-G

Go to a specific date (when in Calendar)

  


NOTE: When an item in the TaskPad is selected, keyboard shortcuts act as if Outlook is in Tasks rather than in Calendar.

When working in an Appointment or Meeting window in Outlook 2007, the Ribbon comes into play. The following keyboard shortcuts apply when editing an Appointment or a Meeting in Outlook 2007:
 

 

Shortcut

Action

  
  ALT, H, I

Turns an Appointment into a Meeting by adding a To box.

 
 

ALT, H, C

Changes a Meeting into an Appointment by removing the To box.

  
 

ALT, H, U

Shows the Scheduling pane of the window so you can look for an open time for the Meeting or Appointment.

  
 

ALT, H, P

Shows the Appointment pane of the window. Gets you out of the Scheduling pane.

  
 

ALT, N, A, F or
M or A

Attach a File (F), or Item (M) or Business Card (A) to the Appointment.

 

 

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